I've said before that I don't like jazz. Yet, I've posted some, and
that has led me to think about why I did. What about my previous jazz
posts made the cut?
I think it's the unabashed soulfulness that so much jazz lacks.
You'll
hear it in Keith Jarrett's moody concert-length improvs. You'll hear it
in Vince Guaraldi's sophisticated soundtracks for the Peanuts/Charlie
Brown television specials, as well as
Guaraldi's music for Black Orpheus.
On
a technical level, it's the liberal use of the warmer, sweeter thirds (
major and
minor) and sixths (
major and
minor), both melodically and harmonically; the willingness to turn
dissonant seconds (
major and
minor) into
ninths -- expansive, inviting, spiritual; the
intentionality that's missing from free jazz.
Then, too, there's the use of bluesy
flips that makes some jazz sound more like
this wistful, countrypolitan masterpiece from the late, great Floyd Cramer than, say, Sidney Bechet. Those flips are also present in
the work of the great, British session keyboardist, Nicky Hopkins.
Jazz
has been called "African-American classical music" and, as in classical
music, the practitioners of jazz approach it with considerable rigor.
The end result is often more hackneyed than authentic, for all its
"correctness". When musicians choose their own path, the result is more
authentic by default. And that's a lesson every musician needs to learn.
Or, as Shakespeare put it in
King Lear, "Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say."
